Protests gathered at the Board of Trustees at its meeting in Chicago on Thursday.

About 40 people urged the University to reverse its stance against declaring itself a sanctuary campus, which would essentially promise to ignore federal immigration policies and protect the privacy of its students. Student and Graduate Activists, an activist group at UIC, and Service Employees International Union, Local 73, organized the rally.

President Timothy Killeen sent a massmail to students in December saying the University could not establish itself as sanctuary because as a public institution, it must uphold state and federal laws. Doing so could “jeopardize our institution,” including public funding, he wrote.

The University’s decision came one day after students presented a petition to Chancellor Robert Jones at an academic senate meeting urging the University to declare itself as a sanctuary campus. In response, activists decided to bring their demands to the Board of Trustees.

“We just want to make sure the University is a safe space for all students, especially undocumented students who obviously face a myriad of social oppression and dangers living here,” Kait McIntyre, a 2011 UIC graduate and one of Student and Graduate Activists’ organizers, said Thursday over the phone.